GOGH, Theo van

Filmmaker and publicist. For his movies Blind Date (1996) and In het belang van de staat [For the Sake of the State, 1997], van Gogh received the Gouden Kalf, the highest award of the annual Dutch Movie Festival, and for the latter also a certificate of merit at the San Francisco International Film Fes tival. As an opinion maker, he was controversial because he spoke very plainly and bluntly. In November 2004, van Gogh was brutally murdered in reaction to his film Submission (a joint production with Ayaan Hirsi Ali), which criticizes the treatment of women under Is lam. The murderer, Mohammed Bouyeri, a Dutch Muslim who did not regret his action, was sentenced to life imprisonment.